I’m a bit of a latecomer to this affair, as Lucia and Jo Nova took an early lead on pointing out the many problems with the survey methodology (or lack thereof) with the paper:
Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing – therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science. Psychological Science.
“Motivated” is the key word here, as it appears there were hidden motivations for this paper. It seems though, once you scratch the surface of Lewandowsky’s paper, that it is nothing more than a journal sanctioned smear of climate skeptics based on not only faulty data, but data gathered with a built in bias.
Besides what we already know about the flawed sampling method, the lack of follow up with skeptic blogs to make sure they got communications inviting them to post the survey, and the early release of results before the survey was complete, the most troubling new revelation appears to be that some climate skeptic blogs got different questionaires than their counterpart AGW advocate blogs. If true (and it appears to be based on the survey numbering system) this negates the study on the basis of inconsistent sampling, and I think it is time to ask Psychological Science editor Robert V. Kail to investigate this paper, and if he finds what the skeptics have, start a retraction. I’ve sent him a courtesy note advising him of this issues with this paper.
Here’s a summary of what has been going on the last couple of days.
Jo Nova has a great summary here, and writes about one Australian investigator who was invited to take the survey questions two years ago, kept screen shots of it, and did an analysis. She wrote:
Graham from OnlineOpinion was so struck by the study he’s written a post titled: Fish rot from the head Part 1.
Read it to get familiar with the survey questions.
Next there’s the who got what version of what survey problem, Jo notes this:
Leopard on the Bishop Hill thread has noted that Steve McIntyre is asking Lewandowsky why there are two or even three different forms of the survey? Why indeed?
Paul follows them up:
The Deltoid, Tamino, Mandia and Hot-Topic blogs were sent the survey number surveyID=HKMKNF_991e2415 on about August 29th. That survey is on the archive, and starts with 6 questions about free markets.
Bickmore and Few Things had the survey number surveyID=HKMKNG_ee191483 also about Aug 29, but this one doesn’t seem to be on the archive.
Steve Mc was sent survey number surveyID=HKMKNI_9a13984 on Sept 6th. This survey is on the archive, and it starts with 5 completely different questions! About how happy you are with life.
This right here should be enough for a retraction from the Journal. If different surveys were sent to different bloggers, and no mention of it was made in the paper or justified in the methodology, then this amounts to purposely biased data from the beginning. UWA may also find grounds for academic misconduct if Lewandowsky purposefully sent different sets of questions based on the type of blog he was inviting.
And then we have the fact that Lewandowsky was discussing preliminary results at a seminar, while the surveys were still open and he had not heard back from the skeptic blogs yet, such as the follow up invitation to Steve McIntyre. Having an open discussion of the survey is highly irregular, because attendees/viewers are free to take the survey, possibly biasing the results.
On the 23rd of September, 2010, Dr. Lewandowsky gave a presentation at Monash university which included the following slide:
Lewandowsky & Gignac (forthcoming)
•Internet survey (N=1100)
•Endorsement of climate conspiracy (“hoax by scientists to get grants”) linked to endorsement of other conspiracies (“NASA faked moon landing”)
•Conspiracy factor without climate item predicts rejection of climate science
So three days after (unsuccessfully) asking for cooperation in fieldwork, Lewandowsky is publicly announcing the preliminary results while the surveys are still open, and he hasn’t heard back from invited distributors. Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit notes that he received a follow up invitation on around Sept 20th. (which he didn’t notice until this story broke). Note the N=1100 value in the preliminary slide. The final paper cites an N<1200 value.
And it seems they are still at it, here’s a recent WUWT comment:
Anthony, there was recently another survey (longer, and with a 1-5 scale) put out by Lewandowsky’s research assistant, Charles Hanich, on June 4, 2012. It seems that the link for this survey was only posted on two blogs: Watching the Deniers and Skeptical Science. Charles Hanich was also responsible for creating Lewandowsky’s 2010 survey, as mentioned in the comments here.
Unfortunately, the link to the June 2012 survey is also unavailable. However, a skeptic called the “Manic Bean Counter” captured all the survey questions and dissected them on his/her blog, here. The following is Manic Bean Counter’s breakdown of the types of questions asked in the survey:
1. Climate Change – 5 questions
2. Genetically Modified Foods – 5 questions
3. Vaccines – Benefits and harms – 5 questions
4. Position of the Conservative / Liberal perspective (US definitions) – 7 questions
5. Select neutral (check of the software, or check for spam?) – 1 questions
6. Free market system v social justice / environment / sustainability – 5 questions
7. Conspiracy theories (political) – 6 questions
8. Conspiracy theories (scientific) – 6 questions
9. Personal Spirituality & Religion – 8 questions
10. Evolution – views upon – 7 questions
11. Corporations – 13 questions
12. Personal emotional outlook – 6 questions
The striking thing is that we have John Cook’s Skeptical Science blog listed as presenting both the original as well as the most recent survey. It as been discovered that Cook is a co-author with Levandowsky on a similar paper:
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., Seifert, C., Schwarz, N. & Cook, J. (in press). Misinformation and its correction: Continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest.
http://websites.psychology.uwa.edu.au/labs/cogscience/documents/LewandowskyEcker.IP2012.PSPI.pdf
One wonders how much Cook contributed to the questions, based on his understanding of his readers likely responses. It is strange irony indeed that the paper discusses “debiasing”, when so many potential biases in Lewandowsky’s methods are clearly obvious to even the casual reader. Wikipedia even cites them for this paper in a section on “debunker”
Australian Professorial Fellow Stephan Lewandowsky[5] and John Cook, Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland (and author at SkepticalScience.com)[6] both warn about “backfire effects” in their Debunking Handbook.[2] Backfire effects occur when science communicators accidentally reinforce false beliefs by trying to correct them. For instance, a speaker about global warming may end up reinforcing the crowd’s beliefs that global warming is not happening.
Backfire indeed, this Lewandowsky “moon landing” paper is a full force backfire now.
Based on what I’ve seen so far, it is my opinion that Lewandowsky set out to create the survey data he wanted by manipulation of the survey system through multiple undocumented surveys, incomplete and non-representative sampling, biased survey questions, and essentially no quality control. There weren’t even significant safeguards in place to prevent individuals from taking the survey multiple times, appearing as other identities. There are so many things wrong with this paper that I can’t see it surviving intact.
I think what we have witenessed here is yet another example of noble cause corruption, where the end justifies the means in the minds of the players.
In reviewing Lewandowsky’s writings (here at The Conversation) over the past couple of years, it because painfully obvious that he sees climate skeptics as a scourge to be dealt with and that even crime can be justified:
Revealing to the public the active, vicious, and well-funded campaign of denial that seeks to delay action against climate change likely constitutes a classic public good.
It is a matter of personal moral judgment whether that public good justifies Gleick’s sting operation to obtain those revelations.
I believe that Dr. Lewandowsky set out to show the world that through a faulty, perhaps even fraudulent, smear campaign disguised as peer reviewed science, that climate skeptics were, as Jo Nova puts it, “nutters”. Worse, peer review failed to catch any of the problems now in the open thanks to the work of climate skeptics.
My best advice to Dr. Lewandowsky right now is: withdraw the paper. It has become a lighting rod for everything that is wrong with team climate science today, and multiple lines of investigation are now in progress including FOI requests and demands for academic misconduct reviews at your University of Western Australia.
I can’t see any of it ending well for you given your reticence to offer supporting data or explanations.
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I thought the term
“Freakin’ deniers,I swear”
gave it away
REPLY: I get email like that every day that isn’t satire. So I’m probably desensitized. – Anthony
Pat at 5 Sept. Yes in someways Australians are adapting, but not because we hope to change the climate, BECAUSE ELECTRICITY IS SO EXPENSIVE. In cold areas we are adapting, by going to bed to watch TV with an electric blanket on. Only one globe in a three globe lighting fixture. On the Northern Tablelands of NSW one green counciller has tried to ban wood smoke and people are turning to cold/hot air conditioners, that take up more electricity. Wood is expensive by far now, it is a luxury form of heating, unless you have a farm with lots of dead trees on it. They are trying to erect a wind farm, but looking for investors (you’d have to be mad!) and I know some people who have put in $35,000 worth of solar, taken out a loan to do it too, and moaned when the NSW government was going to cease subsidies. The NSW renigged. But the writing is on the wall. It depends on how they word their surveys.
PS. Where I live, the temps plummet at night in winter, depending how close to the valley creek on lives, as frost and cold work downhill. It can plummet to minus .15 C. But frost doesn’t form if it is overcast, and the weather announcers point this out. Being surrounded by pastoral or agricultural land, our farmers are more interested in soil science and improving production rather than worrying about methane emitted by cows and sheep, that the Greens wanted to put a levy on being $15 a head of beef or cattle and $7 for a sheep or lamb. It didn’t pass. This carbon tax is now having some impact on our mining industry, and one spokesman suggested Europe not invest in Australia, because of the mining tax and carbon tax. It’s bad news all the way, and we can thank the Greens and AGW alarmists for that. Ozzies are no fools, and although some will go along with it, when it hits their pockets, they take action.
When ever I see a survey on Climate Change the questions seem to be specific enough to enable the authors to satisfy their bias but at the same time too vague to enable the respondant to express any doubt about what is a complicated subject.
The question I thought was missing from the survey, could have gone something like this….
Q. Do you agree with the IPCC’s conclusion that human caused emmisions of CO2 is primarily responsible for most of the 0.4 degree increase in Global Mean Surface Temperature Anomalies during the late 20th century.
Or maybe something a little simpler like……
Q. Do you think atmospheric CO2 concentration is just one of multiple factors that determine the climate.
Simpler still…..
Q. We don not know enough about Climate Change to say what is the main cause of it at this point.
I suspect these sorts of questions would show that there are many rational, non-conspiracy theorists out there that have doubts about the “Consensus”.
Wouldn’t it be good news if the “consensus” was wrong and we’re all going to be ok as long as we don’t panic and do something really stupid.
The psychology of “skeptics” should be a subject of research. The vast majority of “skeptics” don’t know enough to sensibly form an opinion on AGW, but they do anyway. Why? They often bolster that opinion by spouting nonsense (2nd law of thermodynamics etc). Why? Just why have they decided not to accept something that they don’t understand?
As for the “warmists”, most of them don’t know enough to sensibly form an opinion on AGW, but they do anyway. Some of them even spout nonsense in support of their opinion. There is no doubt in my mind that the psychology of people who readily embrace every new doomsday scenario is also worth studying. But I think these people are not the majority of “warmists”.
But, the “warmists” don’t spout anywhere near as much nonsense as the “skeptics”. Indeed, the “warmists” argument is like a bucket with a few small holes, while the “skeptics” arguments look more like someone trying to carry water in a net.
REPLY: Subscribing to Bill McKibben’s Twitter feed for a few days should dispel the false disparity you espouse.
In the meantime, since you are at UWA, and obviously want to protect the reputation of the educational institution you work for, when will you be calling on Lewandowsky to retract this train wreck of a paper? – Anthony
Ric Werme: ” I often cut & paste names so I’m sure I have haven’t messed them up.”
And you can tell that I don’t. Apologies for the mangling.
“Try communicating with your patients through a 3rd party in a setting where they can’t see you.”
Face to face is no guarantee either if you’re dealing with the deaf, individuals with flat affect, those from different cultures, etc. If anything we make a mistake of relying to heavily on culturally and capability specific signalling cues. About nothing to be done for it but to approach things with the hope that a charitable understanding is warranted.
Though if the topic at hand takes on a religious nature there’s simply no hope to avoid a faux pas no matter the case.
TonyM: “This will keep highlighting the unscientific manner with which climatology is often practised (at the alarmist level).”
However this is a psychology paper. Certainly it represents an inappropriate excursion for psychology when speaking of climatological views; which might make a good psychology or sociology paper if you’ve a mind to write for grants. However, within the broader scope of science it is certainly appropriate that it be retracted. There’s simply no credible manner to state that this was an issue of negligence, rather than fraud, in the experiment design.
In terms of messaging or narrative, as some other posters’ have mentioned, the same occurs. Having the paper retracted for faults allows demonstrating the usurpation of science for the purpose of messaging or narrative. Yes, it’s a bit self-serving and circular, but that’s how those sorts of things work out. The attempted upshot is to shame the ‘science’ community for holding ‘anti-science’ kneejerk ideological approaches. Such that if retracted this paper becomes an arsenal for that argument, and if not: “But it’s peer-reviewed and published.”
Which is a rather unfortunate palliative for personal ignorance.
Stephan Lewandowsky’s slow motion Psychological Science train wreck
I am truly curious at what point support of the extreme AGW movement and the green energy scams will collapse. Perhaps, the financial collapse of countries precipitated by massive spending on ludicrous “green” schemes will be the tipping point or planetary cooling due to an interruption of the solar magnetic cycle.
Trillions of dollars are being proposed to be spent on boondoggle schemes which will not significantly reduction carbon dioxide increases but will have significant negative effects to the environment and to humanity. An example is the EU and US mandated conversion of food to biofuel (massive loss of tropic forest and unsustainable increase in the cost of food). Western countries do not have trillions of extra tax payer funds to spend on irrational policy schemes that will damage the environment and result in starvation and malnutrition.
The fact that actual planetary warming is less than the lowest IPCC model prediction and is found only at high latitudes logically supports the assertion that the planet’s response to a change in forcing is to resist the change (negative feedback, planetary clouds in the tropics increase reflecting more sunlight in to space) rather than to amplify the change (positive feedback) due increased water vapour in the atmosphere.
Analysis of top of the atmosphere radiation changes Vs changes in planetary temperature also support the assertion that planetary clouds increase in the tropics thereby reflecting more sunlight off into space thereby resisting forcing changes rather than amplifying them.
Carbon dioxide is not a poison. Plants eat CO2. A doubling of CO2 increases cereal yields by 30% to 40%. Plants make more effective use of water when CO2 rises which reduces desertification. The increase in atmospheric CO2 is unequivocally a significant net benefit to the biosphere and to humanity. Crop yields are and will continue to increase. There is and will be increased net precipitation. The biosphere expands when the planet warms with most of the warming occurring at high latitudes. That is a fact.
Science is unequivocally on the side of “sceptics”. No rational person, regardless of their political affiliation would support trillion dollar boondoggle schemes.
http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/236-Lindzen-Choi-2011.pdf
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications
We estimate climate sensitivity from observations, using the deseasonalized fluctuations in sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and the concurrent fluctuations in the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) outgoing radiation from the ERBE (1985-1999) and CERES (2000-2008) satellite instruments. Distinct periods of warming and cooling in the SSTs were used to evaluate feedbacks. An earlier study (Lindzen and Choi, 2009) was subject to significant criticisms. The present paper is an expansion of the earlier paper where the various criticisms are taken into account. The present analysis accounts for the 72 day precession period for the ERBE satellite in a more appropriate manner than in the earlier paper. We develop a method to distinguish noise in the outgoing radiation as well as radiation changes that are forcing SST changes from those radiation changes that constitute feedbacks to changes in SST. We demonstrate that our new method does moderately well in distinguishing positive from negative feedbacks and in quantifying negative feedbacks. In contrast, we show that simple regression methods used by several existing papers generally exaggerate positive feedbacks and even show positive feedbacks when actual feedbacks are negative. We argue that feedbacks are largely concentrated in the tropics, and the tropical feedbacks can be adjusted to account for their impact on the globe as a whole. Indeed, we show that including all CERES data (not just from the tropics) leads to results similar to what are obtained for the tropics alone – though with more noise. We again find that the outgoing radiation resulting from SST fluctuations exceeds the zerofeedback response thus implying negative feedback. In contrast to this, the calculated TOA outgoing radiation fluxes from 11 atmospheric models forced by the observed SST are less than the zerofeedback response, consistent with the positive feedbacks that characterize these models. The results imply that the models are exaggerating climate sensitivity. …
….However, warming from a doubling of CO2 would only be about 1C (based on simple calculations where the radiation altitude and the Planck temperature depend on wavelength in accordance with the attenuation coefficients of wellmixed CO2 molecules; a doubling of any concentration in ppmv produces the same warming because of the logarithmic dependence of CO2’s absorption on the amount of CO2) (IPCC, 2007). This modest warming is much less than current climate models suggest for a doubling of CO2. Models predict warming of from 1.5C to 5C and even more for a doubling of CO2. Model predictions depend on the ‘feedback’ within models from the more important greenhouse substances, water vapor and clouds. Within all current climate models, water vapor increases with increasing temperature so as to further inhibit infrared cooling. Clouds also change so that their visible reflectivity decreases, causing increased solar absorption and warming of the earth….
http://www.uiweb.uidaho.edu/bioenergy/NewsReleases/Biodiesel%20Energy%20Balance_v2a.pdf
Vast amounts of agricultural land are being diverted from crops for human consumption to biofuel The immediate consequence of this is a dramatic increase in the cost of basic food such as a 140% increase in the price of corn. Due to limited amounts of agricultural land vast regions of virgin forest are being cut down for biofuel production. The problems associate with this practice will become acute as all major Western governments have mandate a percentage of biofuel.
Analysis of the total energy input to produce ethanol from corn show that 29% more fossil fuel input energy is require to produce one energy unit of ethanol. If the fuel input to harvest the corn, to produce the fertilizer, and to boil the water off to distill ethanol/water from 8% ethanol to 99.5% ethanol (three distillation processes) to produce 99.5% ethanol for use in an automobile, produces more green house gas than is produced than the production consumption of conventional gasoline. The cost of corn based ethanol is more than five times the production cost of gasoline, excluding taxes and subsides. Rather than subsiding the production of corn based ethanol the same money can be used to preserve and increase rainforest. The loss of rainforest is the largest cause of the increase in CO2
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725975,00.html
The Clean Energy Scam
The U.S. quintupled its production of ethanol–ethyl alcohol, a fuel distilled from plant matter–in the past decade, and Washington has just mandated another fivefold increase in renewable fuels over the next decade. Europe has similarly aggressive biofuel mandates and subsidies, and Brazil’s filling stations no longer even offer plain gasoline. Worldwide investment in biofuels rose from $5 billion in 1995 to $38 billion in 2005 and is expected to top $100 billion by 2010, thanks to investors like Richard Branson and George Soros, GE and BP, Ford and Shell, Cargill and the Carlyle Group.
But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it’s dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.
Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. Harvests are being plucked to fuel our cars instead of ourselves. The U.N.’s World Food Program says it needs $500 million in additional funding and supplies, calling the rising costs for food nothing less than a global emergency. Soaring corn prices have sparked tortilla riots in Mexico City, and skyrocketing flour prices have destabilized Pakistan, which wasn’t exactly tranquil when flour was affordable.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-14/biofuel-production-a-crime-against-humanity/2403402
Biofuels ‘crime against humanity’
Massive production of biofuels is “a crime against humanity” because of its impact on global food prices, a UN official has told German radio. “Producing biofuels today is a crime against humanity,” UN Special Rapporteur for the Right to Food Jean Ziegler told Bayerischer Runfunk radio. Many observers have warned that using arable land to produce crops for biofuels has reduced surfaces available to grow food. Mr Ziegler called on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to change its policies on agricultural subsidies and to stop supporting only programs aimed at debt reduction. He says agriculture should also be subsidised in regions where it ensures the survival of local populations. Meanwhile, in response to a call by the IMF and World Bank over the weekend to a food crisis that is stoking violence and political instability, German Foreign Minister Peer Steinbrueck gave his tacit backing.
http://news.yahoo.com/prime-indonesian-jungle-cleared-palm-oil-065556710.html
Prime Indonesian jungle to be cleared for palm oil
Their former hero recently gave a palm oil company a permit to develop land in one of the few places on earth where orangutans, tigers and bears still can be found living side-by-side — violating Indonesia’s new moratorium on concessions in primary forests and peatlands.
This dog that eats all the data… do you think it’s the same dog? Must be a big dog!
Maus says:
September 5, 2012 at 9:44 pm
“Which is a rather unfortunate palliative for personal ignorance.”
============================
How about specifics ?
Now we move into psychology ?
And away from science, come back when you are ready.
Well !
Its so obvious. Lewandowskis main problem was how to avoid sceptics because he knew he wouldnt get the answers he wanted, So he made a “Mr Bean” plan “Mr Bean” to let the CAGWpropaganda blogs to act like sockpuppets for him.pretending to be sceptics.
Lets thank Mr Lewandowsky to give scptics just another argument and reason not to trust CAGW-movement. We also have observations to back even this new argumemnt against the green fanatics. They obviously have no moral no principles no shame and they dont care about science a bit. For Lewandowski its only about socialist propaganda.and his University as well as the editor, peers and magazine managed to shoot another buckshot in their own credability.
Lewandowsky faked the data – therefore (cAGW) science is a hoax. An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science.
Liljegren. L,, Nova, J., & Montford, A. (published)
All over the internet you see (otherwise) rational people railing against religion in a most illiberal manner, declaring that religion is child abuse, insanity, and etc. Here we see the same weapon aimed at people who are properly skeptical of the political consensus on AGW / climate change.
Just as with every civilisation, we ought to be very careful what weapons we manufacture, since there is no guarantee who they will be used on …
It is Polaks like Professor Lewandowsky that give us all a bad name.
u.k.(us): “Now we move into psychology ?”
Second paragraph of the OP: “Lewandowsky, S., Oberauer, K., & Gignac, C. E. (in press). NASA faked the moon landing – therefore (climate) science is a hoax: An anatomy of the motivated rejection of science. Psychological Science.”
If you have some outstanding question about my response to TonyM then simply express what you feel is unclear or erroneous and I’ll be happy to address it.
John Brookes says:
September 5, 2012 at 9:29 pm
———-
Just say the word Anthony.
I’m tired of being nice.
Maus has a history of making insulting comments. Bold below by me.
Maus says:
August 16, 2012 at 9:37 pm
jorgejafkazar: “Peer reviewer faustus has pointed out a genuine mistake in methodology. ”
Ah yes, the Heckler’s Veto. But then I object to your peer review of peer reviewer faustus’ peer review so your post isn’t fit for publication. And if you have any decency you’ll remove it post haste. This is absurd of course. But the problem is that your post is capricious, non-responsive, and makes no attempt to establish the ‘genuine’ nature of any of alleged mistake….
But irrational and unthinking nonsense about the arbitrary notions chosen for clarity is itself arbitrary. And if arbitrariness is dispositive then peer reviewer faustus’ peer review is unfit for purpose. And your even more arbitrary sycophantism is even less fit still.
[cross-post with BH] I’m perusing the website for the Assn. for Psychological Science which publishes the journal, and I note that they refer to it as their “flagship” journal with claims that the journal Psychological Science is “highest ranked”:
“…Psychological Science is the highest ranked empirical journal in psychology.”
Thus it purports to be much more than just one of countless journals, a standard bearer for the entire field. They just had another article retracted this summer (see below), so they may be particularly sensitive and vulnerable right now over problems with a new article. On the one hand they may want (psychologically speaking) to dig in and defend their journal’s reputation against barbarians hordes. OTOH, their standards and review procedures may be more vulnerable right now. Good time to insist upon critical scrutiny of the Lewandowsky fiasco.
journal is called Psychological Science (sic)
They just had this article retraction on July 30, 2012:
RETRACTION of a recent article in same journal
The following article has been retracted by the Editor and publishers of Psychological Science at the request of the lead author, Lawrence J. Sanna:
Sanna, L. J., Chang, E. C., Parks, C. D., & Kennedy, L. A. (2009). Construing collective concerns: Increasing cooperation by broadening construals in social dilemmas. Psychological Science, 20, 1319–1321. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02458.x
In a letter to the Editor (Eric Eich), Dr. Sanna wrote:
The data reported in this article are invalid and should not be considered part of the scientific literature. The responsibility for this problem rests solely with the first author, Lawrence J. Sanna. Coauthors Edward C. Chang, Craig D. Parks, and Lindsay A. Kennedy are in no way responsible for this problem.
In response, the Editor noted that Psychological Science follows the retraction guidelines developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Dr. Sanna was urged to follow these guidelines carefully in drafting a retraction notice, particularly with respect to stating the reasons for the retraction, to distinguish misconduct from honest error….
The first sentence of the retraction statement for another article (see above) in Psychological Science would make for a good first sentence for a Lewandowsky withdrawal/retraction:
“The data reported in this article are invalid and should not be considered part of the scientific literature….”
In defence of Maus, I could see he / she was taking the p.
BTW, I love the de-bunking of Lewandowsky.
This Quote from Joe just nails it:
“Faked the Moon landing? Not only do skeptics agree that the moon landing was real, two skeptics actually went to the moon and took photos (that’ll be Harrison Schmidt and Buzz Aldrin).”
Frank Kotler says: September 5, 2012 at 4:15 pm
A commenter over at Bishop Hill’s refers to it as “the Lew paper”… and notes that the pun is intentional. 🙂
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aren’t you supposed to flush said paper when it’s covered in *self snip* 😉
On a serious note I feel bad for UWA and their alumni (of which Jo Nova is one BTW). When you have stuff like this passed off as peer reviewed research it tarnishes not only the academic field in question but the whole school by association. UWA is supposed to be Western Australia’s top university … simply sad.
As for John Brookes … where is your data that supports your statement that sceptics are far more full of nonsense than warmists?
John Brookes says:
September 5, 2012 at 9:29 pm
In Brookes we have a classic case of a Warmist fixated on what he perceives the majority or minority of Warmists or Sceptics to believe, rather than the actual science. How typical.
As a Sceptic myself, I couldn’t give a toss what the majority of any particular pre-defined group thinks. I am sceptical of the positive H2O feedback hypothesis, ergo I am sceptical that additional CO2 released into the atmosphere will lead to runaway chaotic global warming. The alternative to scepticism is faith.
Equally importantly, I am capable of understanding that all of the proposed “solutions” have no merit whatsoever. Even some Warmists admit that cutting emissions by X amount (at a cost of X trillions of dollars) will have no measurable effect on world temps. Biofuel. Wind farms. Don’t get me started. This only reinforces my scepticism as I question the motivations, and intellect, of those who trumpet these grossly expensive “solutions.”
And this, in the eyes of Warmists, makes me either a “denier” (i.e. psychologically unhinged) or a “denialist” (a recently made-up word designed to convey evil intent). Such is the threat of scepticism to their faith.
John Brookes says:
September 5, 2012 at 9:29 pm
The psychology of “skeptics” should be a subject of research. The vast majority of “skeptics” don’t know enough to sensibly form an opinion on AGW, but they do anyway. Why? They often bolster that opinion by spouting nonsense (2nd law of thermodynamics etc). Why? Just why have they decided not to accept something that they don’t understand?
——————————————————————————
Brooksie goes for the big slam dunk and dunks himself … as usual. Mate, you’re going to hurt yourself like this.
“Human CO2 emissions causes climate change”
What kind of question is that? So badly framed that it can mean anything. Someone who believes there is evidence that CO2 causes a temperature rise of at or below 1°C per doubbling SHOULD answer Yes, (most sceptics would probably agree) but one cannot assume they do as a very public debate takes place on wether it will be 3°C or more. I would have my fingers slapped in under graduate school for posting such a question and this man purports to be a professor. Sigh!
John Brookes says:
September 5, 2012 at 9:29 pm
“The psychology of “skeptics” should be a subject of research. The vast majority of “skeptics” don’t know enough to sensibly form an opinion on AGW, but they do anyway.”
“As for the “warmists”, most of them don’t know enough […] . But I think these people are not the majority of “warmists”.”
John Brookes, NONE of the warmists I spoke to in real life ever heard of the positive water vapor feedback posited by CO2AGW science. When asked what the biggest greenhouse gas is they invariable answered CO2. Because that’s what the newspapers suggest.
Before you write your next paper that proves your preconveived opinion (I don’t care how you do that, but I’m sure you’ll manage), just for fun, ask a few real life warmist fanboys. And then don’t ever tell anyone about what you find out; it would damage your career if you did.